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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30112 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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There are no safeguards in the UK system. The people are at the sole mercy of a 325+1 majority of 650 MPs, who can do everything and pass anything with impunity and without restriction. They could rule that everyone with red hair would be executed tomorrow and - provided they were willing to abolish the House of Lords in the same act (something everyone seems to agree they can do) - they could.

Why wouldn't the House of Lords need to pass a bill to abolish the House of Lords when they need to pass every other bill?

It would, but it’s constitutionally considered impossible in practice that they could vote against such a bill, it would be like the king vetoing it.

Why would it be impossible?

Because since the late 19th century at the latest, the other parts of the triumvirate (Lords and monarch) have accepted in practice that they’ve lost all power and must defer to the democratically elected chamber on everything of great import. If you’re asking if there’s any technical reason, then the answer is no, the same way there’s no technical reason why the king can’t just veto any law he doesn’t like or appoint some random person prime minister (a role which itself has no constitutional basis and is entirely informal).

You might realise at this stage that the British system is completely untested since the 17th century and held together solely by collective agreement on its base principles, but it is what it is.

I wonder why the UK even bothers with a bicameral legislature if one of the halves is expected to just rubber stamp everything the other does. Seems silly to me, but I guess it's not my country so it doesn't much matter what I think.

Inertia and tradition like many things.

Canada has a similar setup, where the Senate very rarely tosses a bill out. As part of my job, I have read tons of transcripts of debates over various bills, especially subcommittee ones where they get down to the nitty-gritty.

The Senate debates have WAY less political grandstanding and partisan antics. They seem far better at articulating what they are trying to accomplish and whether that lines up with the proposed law. They'll often send the bill back with modifications, and even without those the discussions on what they are trying to do are useful for interpreting the law in the trenches.

Whether this service is worth the costs and downsides of the Senate, I'm not sure, and I have no idea if the UK works similarly. But I've definitely gotten some use out of them.

Each province has eliminated its upper house though, and the Conservatives did try to kill it by not appointing any Senators. They'd probably have gotten rid of it had they been able, but it would require an unlikely constitutional amendment.

For the same reasons the US still has a Congress (since in practice it’s the bureaucrats who make the laws there).

We'll see how that goes now with Chevron deference no longer being the law of the land.

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